Love and Friendship
by Katherine A. Jones
Summary: Set during Victorian Era London, both Nico and Will need to find wives. Instead (or really, in a addition to) they find each other, and that's when things get hard. Probably full of historical inaccuracies, but I did my best. Eventual Solangelo.


**Hi everyone! Long time, no see. And it's another birthday fic! This time, it's for my friend booklover14 (you can find her on AO3). She requested Historical!Solangelo set during the Victorian Era. Let me tell you, it is hard to write a gay pairing set during the Victorian Era and make it as historically accurate as possible without knowing much about the time period. I did my best, but please let me know if there are any mistakes so I can fix them. **

**The main pairing is Nico/Will, but there is hint of Thalia/Bianca if you squint, but you can ignore that. Look for the clever name puns and the hidden Annabeth!**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Nico sipped his drink, completely and utterly bored with his surroundings. He rolled his eyes as another hoard of giggling girls passed, about to pounce on some poor, unexpecting bloke. He never would understand why his sister Bianca enjoyed these parties or, worst of all, why she insisted on dragging him to them. It was not as if he would find anything of interest here. The women were obviously out of the picture (loath as he was to admit it) and the men were simply too pompous and made too great a show of impressing the fairer sex.

With a sigh, the dark-haired man moved to get off the wall and please his sister by asking one of the women to dance. That blonde over there didn't look that bad. He forgot all about those plans, though, when he ran into something warm and _very_ solid and his drink went everywhere.

"Oh, I am sorry, sir. I did not see you there."

Nico peered up at the other man in curiousity. He had heard a lot of accents in his time, but that one was new to him. "Where are you from?"

"Georgia, in These United States," the blonde replied in Italian. Nico raised an eyebrow in surprise that the man knew he was Italian until he realized he asked the question in his native tongue.

"You speak Italian?" Nico asked, switching to English.

"Enough. I could not construct a flowery poem for you, but other than that . . ." The man shrugged.

Nico nodded. That was reasonable. In Nico's opinion, flowery poetry was useless, so he did not really see a point in his acquaintances knowing it.

"I did not think there were many Americans here," Nico said, switching topics, "What brought you here? It is a rather long journey."

The blonde shrugged, "My father kept in contact with his friends here and decided to ship my mother and I off here in the hopes of me marrying an English heiress. Or something like that. It is absurd, though. I am far too young to marry."

"How old are you?" It occurred to Nico just how forward he was being, but the other man didn't seem to mind too much as he laughed a little.

"Twenty. Which, yes, was the age my father was when he married my mother, and my mother's age when she had me, but I feel far too young to marry, let alone have a child."

Nico hummed, not entirely sure how to respond to that, but settled on, "Well, if you are not going to take part in that delight of London society, are you taking part in other delights?"

The man laughed again, "That is a funny way of putting it, but yes, I am. The theater is interesting and Hyde Park is lovely. I always have a hard time at these balls, though," he continued, squinting at the partners gliding across the floor. "And the balls back home, too, I suppose. They just always seem so staged. women dressed to their best, mens on their best behavior. The mothers are also always hard, practically throwing their daughters at any poor male who walks by."

"I am so glad I am not the only one who feels that way!" Nico exclaimed, very uncharacteristically.

The man laughed, "What is your name?"

"Nico di Angelo," Nico replied.

"Nico of an Angel," the man observed, and his eyes ran over Nico's body and a small smirk played with his lips, but he kept his thoughts to himself. "I am Will Solace," he offered his hand to Nico and Nico shook it, their hands lingering together a little longer than necessary.

"If you do not mind my asking, what are you doing in London, Nico? I know the journey is not as far for you, but I would think Italian society would be sufficient."

Nico sighed, "Yes, well, my sister is becoming of an age to marry and after my father's own . . . delightful marriage to an English heiress, he has decided London is the place to find a spouse. I am sure he would not mind me finding a wife as well."

The two ended up talking together for the rest of the night and when Nico left to go back to his lodgings, he felt strange butterflies in his stomach at the thought of maybe seeing Will again

* * *

"Mr. Solace?"

Will turned around to find the source of the voice and grinned when he spotted Nico, "Hello, Mr. di Angelo. I was not expecting you here."

Nico furrowed his eyebrows in a way Will already knew he was going to fall in love with and looked around at the dinner party they were attending, "Why should it be unusual? I told you my father wanted me to find a wife and my sister to find a husband."

Will shrugged, "It just does not really seem like the kind of place you would go."

Nico made a noise of non-commitment, "I did not have much say in the matter. What about you? I did not know you knew Mr. Jupiter."

"He is one of my father's friends. And has a daughter."

Nico snorted, "Fathers."

Will agreed and was searching for another conversation topic when a pretty, dark-haired girl approached Nico.

"Nico, you are wanted in Mr. Jupiter's office."

"What for, Bianca?"

"They would not say, but I think I saw Miss Jupiter go in there."

Nico rolled his eyes, "Father is never going to let this go, is he?"

Bianca gave an unladylike snort, "I doubt it. If you ask me, this will be when you will have to give your stance on everything," Bianca gave Nico a meaningful look, touched his arm, gave Will a nod, and left.

Nico sighed, pinched his nose, gave Will a strained smile, and said, "Please excuse me, I will try to talk to you later."

Will bit his lip as Nico walked away. As it turns out, London society provided a bit more intrigue than he had anticipated.

He ended up wandering around for about an hour, talking to a few people, before Nico showed up again.

"Well, that was tedious," the Italian muttered in his ear.

"What did he want?" Will asked, turning.

Nico rolled his eyes and took a long drink from the goblet in his hand before replying, "For me to marry his daughter."

Will's heart dropped, but he tried to play it off, "Oh? What did you say?"

"Yes, of course. I would be stupid not to, much as I wish otherwise. I suppose I was never going to find anyone I would really want to marry anyway, so why not her?"

Will furrowed his brow, "Why would you not be able to find someone you would want to marry?"

Nico gave Will a curious and obviously calculating look, opened his mouth, paused, and then said, "I have unusual taste."

"I- . . . I do not . . . understand."

Nico sighed, "I did not expect you to understand. Do not worry yourself over it, it does not matter much."

Will hesitantly nodded and the conversation turned to different topics of theater, politics, and economics before dinner was announced and Mr. Jupiter pulled Nico away to sit beside his future bride.

* * *

Several months passed in such a manner and during those months, Nico and Will spent more and more time in each other's company, at balls, dinners, and other social events. Eventually, they started calling on each other at home, travelling to events together, and visited the country. To all the rest of the world, it appeared as just a close friendship, and perhaps to Will too, but Nico was starting to panic.

It was an accident, of course. He never meant to fall for Will. He should not have fallen for Will. He needed to unfall for Will.

Will, with his gently curling blonde hair, bright blue eyes, seemingly ever present grin, quick wit, and intriguing manner. And it did not help that Will actually seemed to _care_ about Nico, unlike most of the people in Nico's life, excepting maybe his sister.

But, well, maybe Nico should have seen this coming. It was not that big of a stretch, after all, and certainly explained why Will spent so much time with Nico.

* * *

Nico perked up at the sound of the doorbell ringing and allowed a small smile to grace his lips when Will walked in, but it slid a little when he noticed how tense Will looked. Nico tried to catch Will's eye, ask what he was doing, but Will resolutely avoided the Italian's gaze.

"May I speak with Miss di Angelo, please? In private?"

All eyes in the room turned towards Bianca, but only Nico's flicked back to Will, who had a nervous but obviously determined look about him. Nico's heart sank.

"Of course," Mrs. di Angelo was the first to regain herself. She led Nico's father out of the room and Nico dutifully followed, with one last glance at Will.

Really, he should have seen it coming.

* * *

It was a rare moment of Will and Nico being alone together. Or, well, now it was rare. There was a time this seemed as normal as breathing.

"Nico . . . I hope you understand. Please do not be mad at me."

"Why should I be mad at you?" Nico's voice was tight and Will winced internally, "You did what you came to England to do: find a wife. I can not begrudge you that. And I could not ask for a better man to be my brother-in-law. Just please take care of my sister."

And with that, Nico got up and left, and Will was left dumbfounded, so utterly confused about what just happened.

At that moment, though, the rest of the di Angelo family walked in and swept Will up into different conversations.

Later that afternoon, when Nico had (Will hoped) calmed down, the American went in search of the other man. He felt some things had been lost and jumbled up along the way and Will really just wanted to talk to Nico about, well, everything.

He found the Italian in the library, hidden in the back corner, farthest from the fire, with his nose buried in a book.

"What are you reading?"

"Love and Friendship." The reply came automatically, seemingly more out of habit than actual thought.

"Oh."

Nico put the book down on his lap (easy to pick up and disappear into again should the need come up) and looked up at Will, his dark eyes piercing, "What do you want, Will?"

A simple enough question, but full of accusations and emotions Will was not entirely sure he understood.

"I . . ." And of course now was when he realized that he had no idea how to go about this conversation. "I wanted to talk to you about . . . what you said at that party, the one where you became engaged to Miss Jupiter."

Nico tensed but stayed silent.

"You said you had unusual taste and that was why you would never find a wife. At the time, I did not understand what you meant because I thought I was the only one in the world who . . . had that taste."

Will was not sure what the look on Nico's face was – the man was far too good at hiding his inner thoughts – but he hoped it meant Nico was happy, or on the way to becoming happy. At the very least, it encouraged Will to continue.

"Because that is not exactly accepted in our society, and you had already become engaged, I talked to your sister and we formed a plan. You would marry Miss Jupiter, I would marry your sister, and we would all move to America and live together and no one need ever know."

There was silence for a long time before Nico asked, "How could you know whether I would want to live with you? To be with you?"

Will squirmed uncomfortably, "I suppose I thought of the way you act around me and some of the looks you have given me and your sister assured me that you . . . had feelings for me and-" Will cut off when he realized how stupid he sounded.

Nico shifted in his seat, giving Will an evaluating look and crossing his arms, "And how do you think Miss Jupiter will feel?"

"Miss di Angelo tells me that she and Miss Jupiter are close friends. They have also, I believe, talked about it."

"And how do you feel?"

That one threw Will off. He knew Nico would have concerns about himself and his sister, and suspected Nico would ask about Miss Jupiter, but he had not been expecting a questions about his own feelings on the matter.

"I would think that was obvious. I have fallen in love with you. I do not see a way to escape it nor wish to find a way to make these feelings go away. Nothing would make me happier than to spend the rest of my days with you."

Nico took a deep breath, slowly let it out, and said, "I guess that settles it, then. I am going to America with you." A small smile pulled at the corners of Nico's lips and Will grinned in response.

Before Will entirely knew what he was doing, his lips were on Nico's. Even after his brain caught up with the movement of his limbs, he probably would have stayed right where he was with Nico's soft lips against his own if not for the noise of surprise Nico made at the sudden close contact. Sharply, Will pulled back, afraid he had pushed things too far too quickly and started blabbering out apologies, tripping over plenty of words in the process until he was sure he made no sense at all. It was only when Nico gave him a look of exasperation and pulled him back down into another kiss that Will shut up.

* * *

Nico blearily opened his eyes, practically glaring at the sunlight streaming in through the window, and groaned as he turned his face into the soft, white pillow under his head.

Will chuckled and ran his fingers through the dark, dark locks splayed out all around Nico's head, "Morning, Sunshine."

"We have been over this," Nico's muffled voice complained, "I am not 'Sunshine' and it will not catch on."

Will laughed loudly and wrapped his arms around Nico's slim waist before burying his face in between Nico's neck and shoulder, "Whatever you say, Sunshine."

Nico made a noise somewhere between disgust and disbelief, "I hate you sometimes."

"No you do not," Will replied in a sing-songy voice, grinning uncontrollably.

Somehow, Nico managed to flip over. He wrapped one arm around Will's broad back and ran the fingers of his other hand through the blonde's hair.

"You are right. I love you. Always."

It was barely above a whisper, but Will heard it anyway, as always. He placed a soft kiss on Nico's neck and whispered back, "I love you, too, Angel."

And that is a nickname Nico could get use to.

* * *

**Okay, so, the ending could really almost go in any fic or time period, but I couldn't think of any other way to round it off and hey, who doesn't like morning fluff? **

**I'm thinking I'm going to expand/continue this later when I'm not drowning in school work, so if you're interested in that, I suggest following me and not this story because I probably won't put an update on here saying I have started posting that continuation because you're not really supposed to do that. You don't have to (obviously), but I thought I would mention it.**

**Thank you to haleyisafangirl for betaing and encouraging me to do the epilogue. And for saying such nice things! You're just all around awesome.**

**I love reviews, just saying, because they make my day a little brighter and I always reply if you are logged in and I always wish I could if you're not logged in/don't have an account.**

**Have a great week!**

**-Katherine**


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